GUTzilla Dark Matter

TL;DR

This paper proposes a minimal GUT-inspired model with heavy WIMPzilla dark matter, involving a new confining sector and a vector-like quark, addressing gauge unification and dark matter simultaneously.

Contribution

It introduces a novel GUTzilla dark matter model with a confining gauge sector and predicts testable signals in future experiments.

Findings

Dark matter mass > 10^7 GeV evades current detection

Reheating dynamics can produce correct dark matter abundance

Future experiments will probe significant parameter space

Abstract

Motivated by gauge coupling unification and dark matter, we present an extension to the Standard Model where both are achieved by adding an extra new matter multiplet. Such considerations lead to a Grand Unified Theory with very heavy WIMPzilla dark matter, which has mass greater than ~10^7 GeV and must be produced before reheating ends. Naturally, we refer to this scenario as GUTzilla dark matter. Here we present a minimal GUTzilla model, adding a vector-like quark multiplet to the Standard Model. Proton decay constraints require the new multiplet to be both color and electroweak charged, which prompts us to include a new confining SU(3) gauge group that binds the multiplet into a neutral composite dark matter candidate. Current direct detection constraints are evaded due to the large dark matter mass; meanwhile, next-generation direct detection and proton decay experiments will probe much of the parameter space. The relic abundance is strongly dependent on the dynamics of the hidden confining sector, and we show that dark matter production during the epoch of reheating can give the right abundance.